at best it's sort of watchable as a preposterous sci-fi movie, at worst, well, Michael Bay IS the director...

Rating: 5/10 (26 August 2006)

The Island is at least a partial remake of any given number of science fiction movies (among those referenced have been Logan's Run, Clonus, THX, and even the Truman Show), and it owes something to the preposterous science fiction movies of the 1950s where characters are one-dimensional, the storyline is fairly easily readable if you're into the genre, and it's got a lot of turn-off-your-mind action. So being in the 21st century and in a HUGE production mounted by Armageddon/Pearl Harbor gunner Michael Bay, what the Island is and what its content holds and how its done is not lost on me. In fact, it's not even really a 'bad' movie, though at one point about 90 minutes in I had to say to myself "this is one stupid movie". Because The Island tries for the thought provoking measures of say THX 1138 and The Truman Show, by taking the clone side of the picture in the stem-cell debate (is it ethical to create life to save others only to destroy the 'spare parts') in the future. But even in the first half and a bit in the second half of the movie, as it tires to dig into the subject matter and be smarter than just a humongous summer action movie that can possibly leave you a few IQ points lower, there's an empty quality to it too. What can be said except it's Michael Bay doing what he does.
So, it's really just a big B-movie that's masqueraded with 100 million+, two really good-looking stars (McGregor and Johannsen), and even a couple of excellent actors either underused (Buscemi, in maybe five minutes of the movie) or one-sided to the point of inertia (Sean Bean as the 'God' of the Echoes and Jordans and so on). McGregor's character starts off having weird dreams, investigates around the area, and finds out his fellow 'people' are just shells used for spare parts. He gets Johannsen out with him into the real world, chased my a mercenary (Djimon Hounsu, not given much else to do but look stoic and give out orders in yelling form). It leads to, naturally a scene between TWO McGregors on camera, and the kind of scene where the two of them, at gunpoint, have to tell the hunters "I'M LINCOLN!" "NO, I'M LINCOLN!" Which is around where I said the 'stupid' line.
At the end of the Island, I knew it was the kind of movie, as well, that I could recommend to some and not to others. If you're looking for something to which Michael Bay has a kind of near auteur-like knack of doing- big chases, explosions, car crashes, large, sweeping camera shots across terrains, and editing fast enough and photography quick and shiny enough to leave your eyes dizzy, this is just the ticket. That it has inklings of satire about the current state of science, albeit rather simplistic and not as probing like with THX or Truman Show, might strike the fans fancy. But if you're more of a serious science fiction movie fan, not really up for Bay's brand of cinematic whiplash action f***-off movie-making, it might be a slightly arduous experience. From one who's seen Bay movies that are decent (The Rock) and wretched (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor), it's possibly somewhere in the middle. Sometimes pretentious, sometimes fun, a kind of polished, glistening throwback to other movies and books. Overall, it's hit and miss.